Designing Organizations that Learn:
This article was first published in Chinmaya Management Review. For information
about CMR, please contact mytraem@aol.com.
Prasad Kaipa, Ph. D., The Mithya Institute
for Learning
Abstract
In this information age, where knowledge creation and knowledge management
are becoming increasingly important, understanding how we learn becomes critical.
In the first part of this article, I discuss various elements of the learning
process: the dimensions of learning and their interrelationships, the learner
and the content, and normal versus breakthrough learning. In the second part,
I address the process of learning. I propose a framework, a "learning cycle,"
that integrates aspects common to many previous learning theories. The third
part of this article describes a practical set of steps for designing
organizations that learn. It includes examples from business organizations.
Table of Contents
PART ONE: THE LEARNER AND THE LEARNED
''A new meaning of education and learning is bursting on the scene in America. Education for earlier economies was front-ended. When America was an agrarian economy, education for young people between seven and fourteen was sufficient to last the forty years of a working life. In the industrial economy, the age range of students expanded to between five and twenty-two. In the information economy, the rapid pace of technological change means that education must be updated throughout our working lives. People have to increase their learning power to sustain their earning power. Lifelong learning is the norm that is augmenting and in some cases displacing school-age education.'' ---(Stan Davis and Jim Botkin 1995)
The challenges of the information age are too rapid for incremental change. People who are successful in the new millennium, who can anticipate change in order to survive and flourish, will be those who ''understand the anthropology of our times, how human beings make judgments and come to decisions today,''according to Patricia Gallup, the president of a fast growing technology Mail-order company. As individuals, groups, organizations, and communities, make these judgments and come to decisions about their future, I believe this means learning in a new, powerful way.
An enlightened leaders' role in this knowledge age is to encourage people
to think from their heads, feel from their hearts, work with their body,
and integrate their spirit in their day-to-day work. While it looks simple,
an integral approach to designing organizations with focus on people in addition
to business strategy and short term results has the potential to increase
the intellectual capital of the organization, tap into the intrinsic motivation
of the employees, allow a sense of fulfillment in work, and truly develop
an organizational spirit conducive to competitive advantage. The key to knowledge
age is learning.
But what is learning? In 1988, I did an unscientific poll and asked 212 people
from different walks of life that simple question--and I received 176 answers.
While many of the answers were variations on a theme, four aspects of learning
stood out, along with a strong mention by Indian spiritual teachers of a
process of unlearning, defined as the letting go of unworkable values,
assumptions, and beliefs that block our development. (But we'll return to
unlearning later.) These were the acquisition or development of knowledge,
skills, competence, and capacity.
Acquisition of knowledge---facts, data, and information ---was first on the
list of many responses. Knowledge here mostly refers to knowledge about
something. It is also referred to as 'objective knowledge' (because it remains
the same and is independent of person, place, or time)--to be contrasted
with many spiritual traditions that identify self-knowledge as the true
knowledge. This kind of knowledge is called 'subjective knowledge' because
it is generally thought to be independently unverifiable. Warren Bennis and
Burt Nanus interviewed 90 of the Fortune 500 leaders in 80s about the personal
qualities leaders needed to run their organizations and found that those
leaders talked about learning and self knowledge.(Bennis and Nanus, 1985)
Next, being enabled to do something--in other words, learning a skill--was
also high on the list of answers I received, while for others, real learning
was not 'true' learning until there was a 'feeling' of confidence or competence.
Competence is not a skill or knowledge or potential. Competence has more
to do with attitude and feeling and the ability to get a job done and it
is not easily measurable. "Competency combines knowledge, skill, potential,
and personality traits in an integrated way to carry out a complex mission,"
according to Robert Aubrey (1996). Competencies can be knowledge-based or
skill-based and each type of competency has its own set of learning contexts.
For example, cognitive competency gives a person the ability to understand
in the context of school and studies. Process competency is about carrying
out operations in training, factories, and in coaching contexts. When people
feel competent, they can bring their acquired skills and knowledge to bear
in getting a job done right now, when it needs to be done. If they do not
feel competent, then the job does not get done! Donald Michael identifies
'the new competence' of successful leaders as follows:
Finally, beyond feeling knowledgeable, skillful, or competent, there is a
unifying aspect of learning (the fourth category) called capacity that goes
beyond these individual components. Capacity is altogether different from
competence and when one has capacity one is capable. For example, while companies
want to hire competent people, they cannot bring in people from the outside
to increase the capacity of the company. It has to be developed internally.
Companies are constantly working on developing leadership capacity, reflective
capacity, and thinking capacity in their employees. Capacity could also be
thought of as creative capability. While competence is about the implementation
of already developed skills and knowledge, capacity allows for new skills
and knowledge to be identified and acquired. In other words, capacity does
not exist as an empty cup waiting to be filled. It shapes the capability
of an individual, team, or organization to identify new, previously unrecognized
opportunities for you and your company. And it is paradigm-shifting in nature
because a person has to 'unlearn' the old beliefs and patterns before she
can increase her capacity. In the process of stretching beyond one's 'known'
limits, one discovers new untapped capacities in oneself. While competence
is about creating something in the present, the capacity is about creating
the future. The process of discovering new capacity and letting go of old
limits is the unlearning process.
Thus, knowledge and skills are the explicit and most talked about components
of learning, while competence and capacity are subtle or implicit components
that integrate, even drive, the other two. Gaining knowledge and acquiring
skills may result in degrees, certificates and experience, but feeling competent
and developing capacity tap into the heart and spirit of who we are and both
capacity and competence cannot be easily assessed using objective measures.
Integrating learning: Past, Present, and Future
However, learning is not merely the isolated acquisition of knowledge, skills,
competence, or capacity but an integrated process with explicit and tacit
dimensions in the individual and collective domains. To understand why this
is so, we need to better understand not just the results of learning, but
the learning process itself. You can also understand the learning process
by learning about theories (Phillips, D.C. and J.F. Soltis 1985), or by
understanding the recent research on brain and learning (Leslie A. Hart,
1983), or by appreciating how psychologists perceive learning.
Imagine you want to learn to paint. You could begin by reading a lot of books
on painting and soon master what all the books on painting have said about
painting: including such technical details as the proper use of brush, paints,
canvas etc. This however does not enable you to be become a painter and you
cannot say you have learned painting. Also, at times, your knowledge might
even become an impediment. I know of a friend who has been flying airplanes
for over 10 years. He recently got married and his wife wanted to learn to
fly gliders--planes without engines, They both attended classes together
to learn to fly gliders and the husband frequently corrected and helped the
wife to understand the concepts behind flying. Surprisingly, though, the
wife mastered flying gliders faster than the husband because he had a lot
of unlearning to do. His long flying experience with planes hindered his
ability to sense the air currents that gliders require.
Thus, discussion about the kind of organizational culture that develops
competencies and capacity as well as skills and knowledge is crucial. In
a turbulent and unpredictable environment like the present times, being
"adaptive" to the market place changes is not good enough. Managers need
to focus on imagining and creating new industries, not just the improvement
of existing business. If they develop competencies without integrating and
building synergy between them, though they are delivering what customers
need right now, it will be a short-term solution. It is the development of
new capacity, the untapped potential of a new idea, that becomes a product
with a bright future and builds intellectual capital for the company.
In short, knowledge and skills create the foundation of a company, competence
allows for it to be successful in the short term, and a developing capacity
will permit growth in the future.
Figure 1: The four components of learning are knowledge, skills, competence
and capacity. Knowledge and skills are about what we have already learned,
competence is about the present moment and the capacity is about creating
the future.
'Normal' vs. 'Breakthrough' learning
''The ascent of man does not lie in accumulated knowledgeÉScientists
and others have said man can only evolve by having more and more knowledge,
climbing, ascending. But knowledge is always the past; and if there is no
freedom from the past, his ascent will be always limited. It will always
be confined to a particular pattern. We are saying there is a different way
of learning, which is to see comprehensively, wholly, holistically the whole
movement of knowledge. Knowledge is necessary; otherwise you couldn't live,
but the very understanding of its limitation is to have insight into its
whole movement. We have taken knowledge as natural, and live with knowledge,
and go on functioning with knowledge for the rest of our life, but we have
never asked what knowledge itself is, and what its relationship is to freedom,
what its relationship is to what is actually happening. We have taken all
this for granted. That's part of our education and conditioning.'' (J.
Krishnamurti, 1979)
And so, knowledge and skills foster one kind of learning, whereas competence
and capacity foster another. These are usually identified as normal and
breakthrough learning.
James Botkin and his colleagues discuss the distinction between normal learning
and breakthrough learning the following way:
Maintenance learning [or normal learning] is the acquisition of fixed outlooks,
methods, and rules for dealing with known and recurring situations. It enhances
our problem-solving ability for problems that are given. It is the type of
learning designed to maintain an existing system or an established way of
life. Maintenance learning is, and will continue to be, indispensable to
the functioning and stability of every society. But for long-term survival,
particularly in times of turbulence, change, or discontinuity, another type
of learning is even more essential. it is the type of learning that can bring
change, renewal, restructuring, and problem reformulation---and which we
have called innovative learning. [in our words, breakthrough learning]
When people talk about normal learning, it usually implies small incremental
changes in their mental models. Normal learning is what happens when we acquire
more data to support the models and frameworks that we already have (though
they may be mostly unconscious). No major insights result out of this kind
of learning. That is why when we learn how to paint with oils instead of
water colors, we don't view it as a major accomplishment. We are just developing
new skills with new tools.
Breakthrough learning, however, refers to a major shift in perspective. A
'break' occurs in the context within which we view the world. The content
might not change, but how you perceive that content, how you look at the
world (your worldview), is altered in the process of breakthrough learning.
This kind of learning drastically alters the sense of self, the feeling of
competence, and unfolds new capacities that have been unmanifested before.
Essentially, normal learning is learning about something, somebody etc. In
other words, normal learning is objective in nature. It can be broken down
into small chunks and people can be trained or 'educated' through a normal
learning process. The process does not differ between the student or the
teacher and always assumes the same set of assumptions about everyone. It
is excellent process for communicating the existing and well-understood body
of knowledge, as in training somebody to use a piece of machinery to produce
a certain number of widgets per hour. Most scientific procedures are developed
around the normal learning processes.
Breakthrough learning, on the other hand, allows you to learn about yourself,
alters your mental models, and changes your relationship to the world. For
example, a teacher begin to pay attention to the learning styles of her students
in the class room and communicates the same content in different ways (with
more visual images or in a story form or by asking students to engage in
an experiential exercise) that teacher might be surprised at the reception
she gets. While this requires her to break out of her usual teaching plan
and may take longer to communicate the same content than the normal way,
the results could be dramatically different. Breakthrough learning deals
more with subtle issues like your values, beliefs, attitudes, and ethics.
There is nothing objective about this kind of learning and major discoveries
and inventions have come about when people had 'aha' experiences in the most
unexpected times and places. The discovery of the structure of Benzene by
Kekule is an example of how a subjective experiences shattered an existing
set of beliefs about how things work.
In the Indian Upanishads, these two types of learning lead to objective
knowledge--knowledge about the world and things in the world--and subjective
knowledge, or knowledge about the self. Ultimately, it all comes down to
this separation or 'gap': the self and the world, either focusing on the
learner or the content to be learned. Bridging this 'gap' requires both awareness
of the world and letting go of one's perspective on it. Then the learner
and 'the content to be learned' are connected through the process of learning.
Thus, while education and training generally focus on the content to be learned,
we need to focus on the process of learning and the learner.
Indeed, learning has both explicit and subtle dimensions. It has to do with
learning about oneself as well as learning about the world. It involves three
times: past (knowledge and skills), present (competence), and future (capacity).
And because it combines normal and breakthrough learning, we say that development
occurs and that learning unfolds in both wider and deeper dimensions.
Figure 2 : Two kinds of learning operate in orthogonal directions. Together
they result in development.
We have developed a framework for learning that helps one to understand how
both normal and breakthrough learning occurs. Our framework shows that learning
takes place in several phases: conditioning, unlearning, openness, manifestation,
and coaching, after which we cycle back to the beginning and start all over
again in a spiral fashion. Jean Piaget worked extensively on distinguishing
stages of learning in a stage developmental process (Piaget, 1970). This
is not quite what we are speaking of. Piaget focused on how we develop cognitive
structures in interpreting our environment as we grow from child to adult.
In contrast, the framework presented here applies to all ages, though certain
phases may be more prevalent or important depending on a person's age,
environment, and intention to learn at new levels. Piaget also presented
a somewhat linear progression of the stages of learning, tying it to biological
development. If this fusion were strictly true, it would be difficult to
explain the occasions where adults have felt the child-like excitement of
engaging in learning something we really want to know. In those moments we
seem to learn at an accelerated pace, much like that of a child learning
language and the manipulation of his environment in a very short period of
time compare to the average adult. A 'learning cycle' better explains how
this can occur.
Fig. 3. An integrated framework for Learning. We enter into the world
with instinctive abilities to learn and get shaped by the environment. Once
we complete the cycle of conditioning, unlearning, openness, manifestation
and coaching, we develop more trustworthy instincts and begin the learning
cycle all over again. Each time we complete it, we learn something different.
Notice that reflection, unlearning, openness and action begin from within
and show up outside in the environment.
Piaget once said in a lecture: ''Every time you teach a child something you
keep him from reinventing it.'' From the time we are born we learn to live
within boundaries and patterns. We are conditioned by our physical environment,
by what our parents and others tell us, by events that impact us emotionally,
and by the subtle social structures that surround us. Conditioning allows
us to live together, to work together, and to find our way home after work.
Most conditioning occurs through watching what other people do: their practices,
rituals, and unconscious actions. Conditioning is like a reflex, with an
automatic quality.
Thorndike (1913) performed extensive experiments in 'operative conditioning'
on cats. By putting a cat in a box, rewarding it with food upon escaping
and timing its escape over successive tries, Thorndike charted the progress
whereby the cat learned to escape to access the food. At first the cat was
slow, finding the escape by exploration and chance, but eventually it immediately
and consistently found freedom and food. These experiments were the source
of what we now call the learning (conditioning) curve. At first the results
would seem positive for the cat, and indeed they are. After conditioning,
the cat could access the food more quickly. But what if the food was placed
behind a trap door, or worse yet, in another box the cat could access only
with an act of creativity or great luck? Often the cat would stick to the
old plan, sure that there was a reward waiting. How many times have we humans
found ourselves repeating the same old patterns hoping for a better result?
Slowly and relentlessly we build a 'box' around ourselves. While we're inside
the box, we're dependent on its windows to see outside. We also might think
of the window pane as having a distortion effect, filtering the information
that passes through it. The windows could be bright, or of stained glass,
or difficult to see through. They might make the outside look distant or
frightening, playful or complex. In extreme cases they might not let any
light through at all.
It has been said that fish living in two parts of an aquarium separated by
a glass partition generally continue to stay on their original half even
though the partition is removed. Adults quickly become comfortable inside
their individual box and continue to live on 'autopilot'. We become unaware
of the filter on the window and even the shape and size of the box. We learn
to adapt to its constrictions. We therefore forget that there are boundaries;
only if we tried to stretch ourselves would we notice they are there at all.
Conditioning is inevitable and at times even appropriate. It helps us to
function more effectively in the environment that we live in. We develop
our own perspectives and interpretations of the world as we interact more
and more with the environment and in small ways, we also influence the
environment around us by our actions, words and beliefs. In fact, Skinner
believed that we should just focus on condition people with proper stimuli
and reward people when they develop desired behavioral patterns(Skinner,
1958). But just as we cannot plant new crops without first uprooting the
old roots and giving the new seeds a chance, we need to unlearn before we
can learn anew. In other words, while normal learning is facilitated by
conditioning approaches, no new learning or breakthroughs take place with
this approach. Unlearning is the key. How then do we unlearn our patterns
and develop new patterns? How do we escape the box?
There is an old fable about a frog in a pond. A new frog arrived from the
ocean. He asked this visitor how big was the ocean. "The ocean is very large
and the pond is so small compared to the ocean," the second frog responded.
The frog in the pond could not imagine anything bigger than the pond it lived
in and therefore it went away thinking that the second frog was the biggest
liar it had ever met. Escaping our self-created box before there is an emergency,
requires a definite intention. When we travel by plane, how many of us pay
attention to the instructions the flight attendants give on the right ways
to buckle up, and where to find oxygen masks and flotation devices? The ritual
bores us. However, if the plane developed serious engine trouble in mid flight,
everyone would suddenly pay very close attention indeed. Although such motivation
could hardly be higher in survival terms, because of the stress of the situation
some people would still miss many of the instructions given. Because there
is no inherent pleasure in learning about the equipment itself, the mind
still finds itself wandering.
What if we were to develop a conscious desire to explore possibilities outside
our conditioned thinking? We might become aware of what lies outside the
box, we would perhaps see and hear things we were previously oblivious of.
We would gradually develop a creative tension between our desire to change
and our resistance, which is a fear of the unknown; we could confront the
old model, unlearn what was holding us back, and begin to open up enough
to dissolve the old box, and create anew. When this occurs, it is a moment
is one of breakthrough and great awareness. For a while there is reduced
attachment to the past and reduced anxiety about the future. Such transformations
lead to dramatic increases in openness and create a space, a gap between
current reality and the future vision. This is the foundation for 'meta
cognition.' Thinking about one's thinking creates the foundation for 'learning
to learn.'(Bateson, 1972)
One has to become more open in order to see new realities. This means living
not in the certainties of the past, but in the unknowing of the 'now'. This
state of being in the 'now' is called the state of mindfulness in Buddhist
tradition (Ellen J. Langer, 1989), (Sharon Salzberg, 1997), (Goleman, 1997)
. It is a magical place where time loses its meaning. When great athletes,
dancers and players talk about 'being in the zone,' or being in 'flow'
(Csikszentmihalyi 1990), (Csikszentmihalyi 1997) this is the gap that they
refer to. From all my interviews with Nobel laureates and top athletes, I
discovered that this is the place of high creativity and low attachment.
This state is described as a state in which 'I was the player and I was also
an observer unattached to my own play.' This state allows for new associations
and new connections to be made in our brain and we come away changed even
if the experience was brief.
A friend of mine who is a heart surgeon, says that, ''Before an operation
I have to sit quietly for at least 10 or 15 minutes.'' I asked him why does
he do that? Is it nerves? ''No,'' he said, ''I have done hundreds of these
operations, but I've found out I than I can go into autopilot mode. If I
go into the space that 'I know,' I may miss the obvious clues which are,
for this particular patient, very different. I need to clear myself before
I operate; to remember that this person is an entirely separate and individual
human being. I need to treat him or her as if they are unique, because they
are. And if I treat the surgery like an entirely mechanistic procedure, their
life or death is in my hands, so I need to have respect for what I am doing
every single time consciously. And that place of clarity is what gives me
a certain, a certain 'not knowing' of how that operation will turn out.''
And I asked him, ''Is it a sort of meditation?'' He said, ''Well, you could
call it a meditation. I am an atheist. I don't necessarily pray to any god,
but at the same time I do believe in some kind of making myself open. So
whatever is bothering me, the wife, or the kids or the car, or the head of
the hospital... I need to let it go. I need to be in a place of total openness
in such a way that I become just an instrument . All the answers are in the
patient's body. I need to pay attention to what clues the body is providing
to diagnose what needs to be done. And then the body needs to guide my hand.
I can't guide the body.''
Manifestation or Implementation
During the openness stage of learning, re-framing and transformation take
place. We come away feeling stretched, and we often find a little more peace,
meaning and control in our lives in a strange and unexplainable way. We have
expanded our capabilities and a shift has taken place that could allow us
to acquire skills and competencies at a much faster pace if we so choose.
While we have not closed the gap, we are like children, open to possibilities
again. Through play, fun, trial and error, we could attempt to implement
or truly manifest our 'vision' or experience of the previous stage in creative
and unique ways. In some respects, we learn in this stage by doing.
Children have the capability to learn innovatively; they are creative by
nature. But that does not mean they can develop new skills overnight. How
do they access their innate learning capabilities? By doing something: by
practice, by implementation, experimentation, and yet more practice. This
is the crucial skill-acquiring aspect of learning. We spend most of our learning
time here, so it is referred to as 'normal' or objective learning. But when
we are trying to manifest a new idea, generate something that has not been
created before, this normal learning is inspired by a vision or clarity and
allows for breakthrough discoveries. Normal or not, if we fail to act on
our thoughts, all the previous steps are redundant, abstract and sterile,
the knowledge being acquired by mere memorization and therefore subject to
rapid evaporation. Dewey said that, "information severed from thoughtful
action is dead, a mind crushing load." Instead, we can choose to crystallize
them before it is too lateÉ
The process of learning is still not complete; there is one more stage. Even
after manifestation, there may not yet be clear conceptual understanding
of the process that took place. Until this is fully understood, there remain
holes in our knowledge.
To better understand the process of learning, the learner has to take on
a role of a coach or mentor to assist another learner. During that process
of teaching, the teacher learns at a deeper level. It is only by attempting
to explain something that we sometimes realize that we do not fully understand
it ourselves. We may have accepted much of the material at face value, but
when a student asks us ''Why is that?'', we have no alternative but to think
it afresh. The act of teaching is therefore unique in its ability to clarify
thought and be a learning accelerator. It is the beginning of a new learning
cycle and an essential ingredient on the path to mastery. Reuven Feuerstein
of Israel (a student of Piaget) has spent a better part of his life working
with kids with down syndrome and his work is about 'cognitive modifiability'
and coaching. He believes that our brains are 'plastic' and with proper
'mediation' we can change the responses of the child even though the stimulus
remains the same. His theories on 'mediated learning experiences' and 'learning
potential' are becoming more and more known to educators outside of Israel
and his approach to working with down-syndrome kids is an example of
transformational coaching method (Feuerstein, 1980).
Finally, learning process is cyclical or more accurately spiral in nature.
The first time we attempt to learn something, we master the content. When
we get back to it the second time with more awareness and interest, we begin
to understand the process. The third time, if we do return, the context in
which the learning process unfolds begins to become clear and the fourth
time, we begin to tap into how people get interested in anything. In other
words, we can understand intrinsic motivation much better the fourth time!
PART THREE: DESIGNING ORGANIZATIONS THAT LEARN
Designing a Learning Environment
How then can we create a learning environment in which knowledge, skills,
competency and capacity are all developed? The key is the creation of the
organization that learns. This is because learning for the individual is
not separate from the contexts of family, group or team, organization, and
community. In other words, all learning occurs within a culture or environment.
Learning shows up as 'growth' in four dimensions in people: Physical, emotional,
intellectual and creative/generative. One can become a great player or swimmer.
Emotional learning shows up in abilities to nurture in relationships.
Intellectual growth is more easily understood while creative or generative
learning results in inventions, and innovations. In a general sense, an
organization that learns pays attention to creating environment that supports
physical well being (and development), provides emotional support (affects
the sense of belonging and psychological health), challenges and stretches
intellect and facilitates creation of new knowledge through products, processes
and services. The key to such learning is emotional development and hence
the leader's attention has to be to find a way to open the hearts of people
so that they co-create the organization that support the development in other
dimensions. Let us look at the steps to creating such environment.
The first step is what I call 'creating a foundation'. It involves creating
boundary conditions and ground rules for designing and differentiating this
organization from others. In other words, the purpose of the rules is to
clarify the game that we are choosing to play. The ground rules shouldn't
be limiting to people, their purpose is to create a consistent playing field
with room to maneuver, where there is a common understanding for working
together. In a mundane sense, restructuring a learning environment like
developing operand conditioning a la Skinner. More people are involved in
creating such rules, the better the foundation and more interested people
are in playing the game.
Ground rules should not be broken. Not because of authority but because you
chose to create them in the first place. If you do not follow the rules you
set forth, nobody will follow them either. If you do not like the ground
rules, you work with the system to change them. If such change is not in
the best interest of the organization, you can choose to stay in the system
and follow the ground rules or to get out of the organization and find another
where a different set of ground rules are present. If, for example, your
organization is a business where drugs are forbidden, if any drugs, are found
on the premises or if the person is found to be on drugs, the responsible
party will no longer be part of the system. There cannot be exceptions to
ground rules at the foundation level. True leadership is about modeling the
behavior, 'walking the talk' that you wish others to follow. By making the
ground rules minimal and clear cut and by following them religiously, you
create a safe space for other people to play with you and build with you.
In that respect, the first step is all about leadership.
This is not an issue of morality, but more one of conditioning and habit
formation. At the body level, the reptilian brain does not operate logically.
It does not function by emotions either. It operates in black and white.
It operates through fight or flight survival responses and there is no higher
level intelligence at this level. It means that you cannot ignore something
that you have helped to create. If you do, the survival of the system is
threatened.
Once we all agree to work with the minimum required and to always follow
the rules, we have a game to play. The role of the leaders is to continually
monitor the playground and make sure that the game is getting played. Authority
would not work here. Only once all parties have agreed with and committed
to all the rules can the game go on to the next level.
An excellent example of creating a solid foundation in the corporate world
is the Boeing 777 Program Reviews conducted by Alan Mullaly, VP and General
Manager of the 777 program (since I met Mullaly, he moved on to become the
president of a major division in Boeing). I attended one of the project review
meetings that Mullaly managed and was quite surprised at what happened there.
Their ground rules provide not only a clarity of where they stand and how
to proceed on a project, but they also take into account the emotional, cognitive
and generative aspects of learning together. Here are their purpose and ground
rules:
Purpose/Review Together:
Principles and Practices:
The aspect of physical or habitual learning is reflected in the consistency
of their 'Project Review' meetings, which were always scheduled on Wednesday
mornings from 8 - 11 a.m. Alan Mullaly starts the meeting exactly at 8 am
with a big picture review. He welcomes guests one by one, acknowledging their
contribution (if any). He then reviews principles and practices. As you probably
noticed in the ground rules above, there is opportunity for people to complain.
Once you complain, it is also your responsibility to propose a plan and find
a way that would work for everyone. Another key measurement they use in their
Project Review meetings is based on a traffic light metaphor: All items are
marked in green on the 'moving on' schedule. Items listed in yellow require
special attention. Red listings are warning signals requiring everyone to
help each other. The emphasis here is that they are all in it together.
The meeting I attended was very nicely organized with no blaming and no
complaints. Customers, suppliers and visitors from other parts of the Boeing
company who go to these Project Review meetings are impressed at how much
information gets communicated, how issues get resolved, and how each of the
participants, including guests, gets a chance to contribute, give feedback,
and become part of the larger project. Ownership, responsibility and
accountability all emerge out of the clear ground rules. A participatory
field in which you have choice and freedom to do what works for you and the
team is also present. Such is the product of a strong foundation.
Once the required ground rules are clear and in practice, it is very important
to design a caring and nurturing environment. This can involve the physical
environment as well as the emotional environment as created by acting
consistently with the values designed into the ground rules. Culture is what
empowers or dis-empowers people. In essence, this section is about empowerment
---creating, sharing, and nurturing. A nurturing emotional environment is
created through principles and practices that reflect values like care, empathy,
trust, listening, sharing, risk-taking and learning from mistakes. While
the game rules and boundary conditions define the play ground, these principles
make the game interesting, fair, and fun to play. In relation to the learning
dimensions, a nurturing environment leads to emotional engagement. The limbic
system has a range of emotions that gets engaged in such an environment.
When good ground rules based on the several dimensions of learning are present,
and their implementation has created a safe and enjoyable learning environment,
a 'learning culture' forms that is roughly analogous to what we called the
phase of 'conditioning' in the cycle of learning. The culture reflects the
design of the ground rules and environment, so if one of the dimensions of
learning was not included in the design, the culture that arises will not
stand on a strong base for learning.
The environment in the 777 program seems to be well designed. When I spoke
with Alan Mullaly, he made it clear that during his meetings people tell
the truth and do not hide their mistakes from others. This is because Mullaly
himself is willing to show his vulnerability in front of others, to tell
the truth, and to practice the values he preaches. His deputies have a good
role model.
I also noticed that Mullaly only talked about changing behavior through rewards,
never through punishment. He implicitly believes in the goodness of human
beings. As skill levels are not in question, he is willing to support them
in doing what is good for them. In return, his deputies seem to also do what
is good for the whole 777 team. New people on the team might not want to
practice teamwork and may initially feel uncomfortable and exposed in the
''working together'' culture of 777. This is likely to change as they begin
to become conditioned to the culture of telling the truth and taking
responsibility. Culture is tacit in nature and gets propagated through practice.
Children do not have any problem in putting on their seat belts in the car
or wearing helmets while riding their bicycles. Why? They learned those habits
as part of growing up. We adults, on the other hand, were not brought up
during a time when seat belts and bike helmets were an every-day issue. As
a result, we kick and scream about our own safety, getting mixed up with
other issues like personal freedom and choice.
Individual Transformation and Organizational Transformation
The third step in creating conditions conducive to learning is to focus on
individual transformation. While clear boundary conditions and an empowered
environment are extremely important, individual transformation is the key
to organizational transformation. This means cultivating the context for
individual creativity, therefore allowing innovation to occur.
The more firmly we establish the first two steps, the more possibilities
emerge in this third step. The more people know and value the structure,
the more they expand to fill it. The more nurturing and empowering the culture
is, the more people want to go beyond it. This going beyond, breaking the
mold does not occur collectively at first. It begins with an individual
transformation.
We already know that creativity has something to do with breaking the mold,
stretching the limits, challenging the conventional wisdom; it's something
we call 'thinking outside of the box'. This involves the stages of 'unlearning'
and 'openness' described earlier. For most of us this is a courageous act.
It involves the risk of 'bridging the gap' between uncertainty and untested
creation. In order for us to more easily take risks as individuals we need
the support from our environment.
This involves both the group's leader and the group itself. In order to get
in touch with their inner genius, leaders sometimes require personalized
coaching and to have their ways of thinking and nurturing stretched. This
can be done through forcing them to expand their cognitive maps and by
appreciating and acknowledging who they are to us. Leaders generally think
of themselves in a rigid, limited, and mostly distorted way. It is not until
we, the other group members, have bridged the gap between who the individual
leaders think they are and who they are to us that they can reach their full
potential. The more genuine and authentic we are in noticing them and identifying
their unique contributions and characteristics, the better they will lead
and teach us.
A key principle and practice for creating an environment conducive to bridging
the gap between the individual and the group is that of acknowledgment and
appreciation. In each Boeing 777 project review meeting, not only are current
team members present, but guests, old team members, and customers are there
as well. Mullaly greets each and every one of them by their first name,
acknowledges their contribution to the project, and makes it obvious that
he appreciates their visit. He asks them individually for their feedback
on the meeting and the project. Many individual letters get read aloud by
him as well as put on the overhead-projector and read by the whole team.
It was fun for me to watch the faces of people who were personally acknowledged.
It was as if they grew an inch instantly. Such instances of euphoria are
the time for transformation. Once people see how they are perceived and
appreciated by others, they begin to make changes to themselves accordingly.
They attempt to bridge that gap between who they think they are and who others
think they are. Their inner genius begins to emerge.
Authenticity is extraordinarily important in acknowledgment and appreciation.
If the person thinks that we are faking such things, there could be a significant
loss of trust and respect not only for us, but also for any other person
attempting to acknowledge or appreciate. Faking is dangerous. Angeles Arrien,
a cross cultural anthropologist, once said that each person is a leader,
and effective leaders are the ones who know how to acknowledge others and
what she says is:
People in the world over consistently acknowledge each other in four ways:
We acknowledge each other's skills; each other's character qualities; each
other's appearance; and the impact we make on each other. Wherever we receive
the least acknowledgment is where we may carry a belief of inadequacy or
low self-esteem (Arrien, 1993)
The power of acknowledgment is such that it can cause a change to occur in
the other person. If that person is over acknowledged in one area or merely
desperate for any acknowledgment at all in order to create a positive self-image,
upon hearing such comments they can start believing them in a fundamental
way. They can realign their self perception. Because of this, they start
to develop in that area; it becomes self-fulfilling.
In today's lean and mean organizations, every employee needs to be an agent
of change. This mastery of change, which brings forth brilliant customer
service, new product development, and innovation comes through this personal
transformation step more than it does through mere ground rules or a supportive
environment. But the first two steps are the foundation upon which this third
step is built. Without them, personal transformation is not sustainable.
The fourth step in preparing a learning environment is not just to play a
game but to design a new game, a game which is much bigger than that with
which we started. If we have done well with the first three steps, we should
have a large number of leaders who are good in setting clear boundary conditions,
and know how to establish a powerful learning environment. In addition, these
leaders are themselves personally transformed and are constantly coaching
others to transform themselves.
It is like building a community of leaders, truly liberating leadership.
This is the place where generative learning and new innovations of a high
order take place as people are constantly engaged with creating new knowledge.
This is not about competing with an external customer or being perfect. It
is about truly pushing the boundaries of human thinking and creativity. It
is about co-creativity, teamwork and collective generative learning. It is
also about contribution and integration of leadership, empowerment, and
creativity in one and the same person and every person in the group. It is
about synergy and generation of new knowledge.
This fourth step is about learning to learn and is what brings the focus
back onto the first step. Once we experience paradigm shifts and breakthroughs
that lie hidden in the fourth step, setting new ground rules is a natural
consequence for the bigger and new game that we design!
In essence, the fourth step is about integration. It is about action--not
just any kind of action, but action without attachment to results. It is
not about getting something for you; it's about giving something to the larger
community. That is the context in which '1' and '1' could combine to produce
'11.' As you notice, '11' does not come from any addition, subtraction, division,
or multiplication from either '1.' This is what happens within an organization
that learns. Communication and learning at all levels--(head (cognitive),
heart (emotional), gut (physical)--arises under such circumstances. In such
a place there is choice and freedom for individuals and organizations to
create, lead, and empower each other while doing something larger than the
sum of their individual capabilities and capacities. That is the meaning
of an organization that learns.
Fig. 4. Organizations learn just like human beings--in cycles. They have
to have a body which happens to be the organizational framework (skeleton)
and the culture is the blood that flows through the body. Individual
transformation ignites the creativity and innovation and generation of new
knowledge gives birth to new organizations (organisms). Then the cycles begins
all over again!
As we have seen, the learning process is far from simple. Realizing that
there are several stages and four different yet integral dimensions involved
in each learning cycle, and that steps must be taken in order for all four
dimensions to be present, makes us realize how much we can do to improve
not only our learning, but the learning that occurs all around us. From within
the home, to our children's' schools, to our businesses, the learning process
is constantly taking place in ever widening cycles of creation and mastery.
In the end, a leader's new role in the knowledge age is to encourage people
to think from their heads (to unleash their creativity), feel from their
hearts (to create a culture of empowerment to nurture themselves and people
around them), work with their body (provide leadership by doing, and practicing
what they preach), and integrate their spirit (by focusing on building capacity
and appreciative approach to inspire others) in their day-to-day work. This
integral, cyclical approach has the potential to create the intellectual
property of the organization, tap into the intrinsic motivation of the employees, allow a sense of fulfillment in work, and truly develop an organizational spirit that works to a competitive advantage.
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An Executive Guide to Learning
Copyright 1998, 1999, The Mithya Institute for Learning. All rights reserved.